THE CONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL EXCLUSION PROCESS
IN YOUNG PEOPLE: A BIOGRAPHICAL-NARRATIVE
APPROACH.
TERESA SUSINOS
UNIVERSITY OF CANTABRIA
SPAIN
susinost@unican.es
Introduction
The current paper intents to describe the basic theoretical principles that lead two
researches we are carrying out in the university of Cantabria and the university of
Sevilla1. The purpose of this research is to know and describe the existent barriers for
the educative and social participation of young people affected by a situation of social
and cultural exclusion. In particular we are interested in the way these barriers are
expressed and lived by the own people above mentioned. With this aim, we have used
different biographical-narrative methods.
There are various elements that singularise this research on social inclusion such as we
are trying to state bellow. These elements can be summarised as follows:
1.
2.
3.
Exclusion is a wide and complex phenomenon of structural character that
affects both, individuals and different social groups. Traditionally the study
of exclusion has been independently talked for each social group and in
particular, the group of disabled people has been constantly ignored by
sociological studies. However, one of the main objectives of the current
research is to highlight the common aspects within the path towards
exclusion that can be seen in the different social groups (Parrilla, 2002;
Susinos, 2002).
Exclusion is a phenomenon socially constructed, therefore it does depend not
so much on the individual conditions, but on the social and institutional
organisation systems that impose barriers or restrictions to the social
participation of certain groups or individuals. Thus, exclusion is a process
that can be described according to its diachronic dimension, by pointing out
the fundamental milestones in such way, which we will call herein barriers
for inclusion.
Exclusion can be studied from the point of view of the affected people,
narrated in first person. Against the most external and expert methods to
know about exclusion, in our study we are interested in knowing about
exclusion in first person. Thus, we will use biographical-narrative
1
Parrilla, A. y Susinos, T. (dirs.) (2003).The construction of the social exclusion process in young
women: origin, forms, consequences and implications for training. I+D Project. Instituto de la Mujer.
Expte. 90/02 0000245 1 010112003.
Parrilla, A. y Susinos, T. (dirs.) (2005) The construction of the social exclusion process in young people:
A guide for the detection and assessment of exclusion processes (Cantabria and Sevilla). I+D+I 2004-07
Department of Education . Ref.: SEJ2004-06193-C02-02/EDUC.
techniques, since they are the ones that best allow us to came close to such
biographical contents.
So, these main principles are specified in our study through some epistemological
and methodological decisions that are summarised in the following table:
SOCIAL EXCLUSION
How it
is…
It affects
different groups
through
common ways
It is a social
construction
No
individualisati
on
How do we
study it…
Interdisciplinary
approach
Reasons why
we study it
in this way
To get a
complex
knowledge
Study of the
barriers for
participation
To reveal
aspects
within the
social
organisation
that generate
exclusion
It generates
excluded
identities
Diachron
ic view
Biographicalnarrative
approach
“giving
voice” to
the
excluded
persons
Empowerment
Following, let see how the principles above mentioned are understood and developed in
our research.
A wide idea of social exclusion: various groups, similar social barriers.
Social exclusion is a structural phenomenon (not circumstantial), which is increasing in
our societies and that it is related to certain social processes that lead to the isolation of
certain groups and individuals while they are marginalized by the organisations and
institutions in which society is organised. This process entails a lost of the sense of
belonging for the individual, as well as the denial of certain economical, social,
political, cultural and/or educational rights and opportunities (Tezanos, 2001a). This
meaning of social exclusion has strong connections with the concept of oppression, as it
has been defined by Young (2000).
For his part, Manuel Castells (1998) reminds us that “social exclusion is a process, not a
condition. Therefore its frontiers change, and who is to be excluded or included can
vary with the time, depending on education, demographical characteristics, social
prejudices, business practices and public politics”.
Actually, exclusion could be also understood from its opposite concept of social
citizenship where we also find an internal or individual process of degradation and an
external or social process of fracture or removal of several groups or communities2 . For
this reason the term is used with regard to “All those persons that, in a certain way, are
out of the vital opportunities that define the achievement of a full social citizenship in
the horizons of the end of the twentieth century” (Tezanos, 2001b, p138)
Taking the previous definition of social exclusion as a starting point, it is necessary to
recognise other social groups as excluded, beyond the ones traditionally proposed by
sociology. According to what stated by Slee (1997), up to now from the social sciences
the attempts for a joint construction of the phenomenon of social exclusion have been
focused on what the author identifies as: “class, culture, gender”, leaving the question of
disability out. On the contrary, we defend herein an essential unity defined by the
concept of exclusion we have adopted and which also includes the group of disabled
people, traditionally under-recognised in the studies about social exclusion.
Therefore, the groups of young people who find themselves in a situation of social and
educative inequality and that are finally taking part in this research are the following:
- Young people belonging to underprivileged social classes with limited access to
culture and information and with a precarious economy.
- Young people belonging to not dominant cultures and ethnic groups: ethnic
minorities, immigrants, and in general groups whose reference cultures are ignored
by the social or educative leading culture.
2
The idea of social exclusion we defend is related to three other wide sociological concepts that are
combined in a different way within every group or individual: the separation of the leading standards
in society (social deviation, social marginalization, or social segregation), the idea of poverty or lack
of resources sufficient enough to live in a concrete society and the idea of alienation from social
processes, of lack of participation.
- Groups of people with disabilities and educative needs, with special difficulties to
accede to the social and scholar learning and to progress adequately at school.
As stated above, in our research hereby we understand that the process of social
exclusion of people belonging to the previous groups (due to class, culture, gender or
disability) has numerous features in common and is constructed through parallel
channels. This statement leads us to recognise together with Slee (1997) that it is a must
for scientific research to contribute to the construction of a new theoretical frame
through investigating the epistemological and methodological connexions towards the
definition of identities of groups in situation of inequality or risk of exclusion for
cultural, gender, social or disability reasons (in the school, in society, in educational
politics, etc). That is why we believe it must be called into question the independent
construction (from different disciplines with no connexions among each other) of the
discourses on exclusion, since, at the very best, each of them offers an incomplete view
of the phenomenon.
From the above it may be deduced that a multidisciplinary approach to the phenomenon
of social exclusion is necessary, given that such a complex phenomenon can’t be
grasped just from the positions of traditional disciplines.
On the other hand, and according to Morin (2003), the traditional prevalence of
disciplinary research has an effect on the knowledge itself, remaining distorted or
incomplete while destroying at the same time solidarity and responsibility. Specialised
disciplinary knowledge prevents us from joining, placing the information within its
natural context and we loose the capacity to globalise, to appreciate every knowledge as
a part of a wider knowledge, when the conditions for any pertinent knowledge are
precisely contextualisation and globalisation
Likewise, the compartmentalised and parcelled way in which specialist and technical
experts work (but also administrations and bureaucracy while designing and managing
social politics) are the cause of the progressive destruction of solidarity and
responsibility, since if we don’t face the problem as a whole, we will loose at the same
time the sense of responsibility and we will end up limiting our responsibility to our
small professional task Therefore, the transdisciplinary thinking leads us towards an
ethic of comprehension, and without it no civilisation is possible.
Exclusion is a process socially constructed: The process of formation of excluded
identities
Talking about social exclusion as a phenomenon socially constructed implicitly sums up
two important options of our research:
a) An open rejection towards individual explanations of social exclusion, based on
particular psychological characteristics or other personal features of the subjects,
which are presented as differences with a natural biological base or due to
certain physical characteristics of the subjects. As an effect of such individual or
psychological model the social phenomena became naturalised in such a way
that the differences of social nature (due to a particular way of organizing
society and institutions) appear to us as natural, indisputable and eternal. Thus, it
is implicitly understood that such phenomena cannot be changed due to its
“universal and truth” nature.
On the contrary, we start from the assumption of the basic premise of social
responsibility while creating social exclusion and therefore the core of the
research consist in detecting and analysing the obstacles and restrictions
imposed by the institutions and social organisation in general to the individuals
or groups and that provoke as a result that these individuals or groups find
themselves left out of social participation.
So, in the line of Disability Studies developed following the social model of
disbility, our research focuses on the study of social barriers for the participation
( named “disabling barriers” by Finkelstein), such as they are described by the
own people affected. This intends, according to Zarb (1997), to explain the way
and the extend to which economical and social institutions contribute to the
promotion of specific ways of exclusion experimented by individuals or
concrete social groups.
b) Likewise we hereby intend to study the construction of exclusion in a diachronic
way, and also to know the historical course through which the subjects construct
their own excluded identities (disabled, “bad students”, foreigners, unemployed
people or “unemployable” identities). It is precisely this constructed identity and
the different milestones of this process what we intend to know from the own
affected.
Frequently social exclusion has been analysed as a fixed picture, describing the
present state of certain persons or groups and stating their situation of social
alienation in the educational, cultural, economical and social processes.
However, we must keep in mind that social exclusion is a process which can be
sometimes slow and subtle and which is not always linear.
Therefore, we are keen on analysing the exclusion in its dynamic dimension, as
a process through which young disabled people or underprivileged social groups
go on finding in the course of their lives successive barriers that act as obstacles
or hitches for the full social participation and that finally “incapacitate” them,
exclude them or segregate them.
The interest of studying the social exclusion from the point of view of the own people
affected, trough their own words
As we keep on stating, the main interest of this research on knowing the points of view
and the experiences of those who are socially excluded is not very common in social
research and it is particularly unusual within the studies with regard to the group of
disabled people (French and Swain, 2000)
However, as Barton and Oliver (1993) pointed, the understanding of exclusion brings
up the need of analysing not only the construction of the exclusion process itself (the
mechanisms and ways that lead to it) but the personal and subjective dimension of the
process (the experience of exclusion itself, the interpretation, opinions and perspectives
of people living in a situation of exclusion). This study of exclusion “from inside” is
also interesting because the official rhetoric not always matches up with the images
these people have from themselves (Barton, 2000). In this respect, from the point of
view of the social workers, social services institutions and health and educational
workers, it is important to bear in mind this sentimental and experimental dimension of
the users too much times ignored in the planning of social and educational politics.
This research adopts a biographical-narrative approach with the aim of giving voice to
the protagonists. Narrative techniques have been used for a long time in several social
sciences (anthropology, linguistics, ethnography) and particularly from the post-modern
and feminist perspective3. Essentially this methodological model is based on the idea
that “human beings read and interpret their own experience as well as the experience of
others in the form of a story (…) narrative structures (…) constitute the frame through
which human beings endow their world with meaning” (Bolivar et al. 2001,p.21). Thus,
our actions and other’s are understood as texts to be interpreted that provide our
experience with a meaning. The language allows us the construction of meaning of our
thoughts, feelings and actions.
For this reason, the way in which individuals retell their story (what they underline,
what they omit, their position as main figures or victims) shapes what individuals may
declare about their own lives. In fact, Bruner himself (who contributed in a decisive
manner to consolidate narrative investigation in psychology) stated that “The crucial
moments in life are not caused by real facts, but by the reviews carried out in the
account used by everyone while talking about their lives and the self” (Bruner and
Weiser, 1995)
Therefore the autobiographical narration done by these young people constitutes a kind
of “personal archaeology” of their own story. This provides the informing person with a
principal and not very frequent role in the research, a co-researcher status of his own
life.
Following the previous ideas about the potentiality of the biographical-narrative
methodology, our study makes use of several techniques that lead to the exploration of
everyone’s narrative activity with regard to the barriers young people find most
significant in their own story of social and scholar exclusion.
This way of approaching exclusion known as participative approach analyses exclusion
in first person, from the perspective of persons belonging to marginalized groups. In our
opinion, the biographical-narrative methodology we use in this research is the most
reliable one.
We find that in our case autobiographical narration has a double function:
a) The interest in “giving voice”, in analysing and describing forms of collective
representation of excluded groups, in bringing out hidden or marginalized
stories. This first dimension is emphasised by the oral history and the social
interactionism (eg. Goffman).
3
In particular this methodology links with the post-modern principles of rejection of the meta-narratives
and the universals, as well as with the extolment of the peculiar, different and typical of every human
being.
At this point, it comes under debate the necessity to make progress with the
analysis of exclusion, not so much from the hegemonic position (focussed on the
analysis that professionals and leading theoretical models carry out: politicians,
doctors, psychologists, teachers, childminders, social workers) but from a more
democratic and participative position that considers that the voice of excluded
people should not only be listened while analysing exclusion processes but also
in the widest processes of decision making.
As stated, the main interest of this kind of research is “to give voice” and to
recognise the prominent role of the people interviewed in their own story of life.
In this sense, the research we are developing shares many premises with the one
called Emancipatory Research (Oliver, 1992,Walmsley, 2001; Mercer, 2002,
Barnes, 2001)4.
b) The individual dimension of empowerment, the development of a better vital
self-understanding, of exploration of the roots of our own actions. Such
biographical reflectivity may turn into active knowledge, may became a
platform for action. It is the idea of “acting with words” from Chamberlayne
(2004). At this point it should be emphasized that social order is not only
something that is transmitted, such as it has been studied from the most
classical approaches in sociology , but also something which is experimented,
suffered or enjoyed, something to which people react (what sometimes generates
changes in the social order itself). This experiential dimension of social
stratification is what matters to us in this research.
Some data with regard the methodological design of the research
Thus, the research we propose can be summarised in the following aspects related to the
sample, the techniques of data collection and the analysis of the results.
The total sample of cases of young people interviewed reaches the number of 30,
distributed as follows:
University
Cantabria
Students from group
4women
economical
and
4 men
of University of Sevilla Total
4women
4men
16
(8 women/8men)
4
Oliver (1992) described this kind of research countering it with the models used up to then, that he
called positivist and interpretative . He stated then that “disabled people have come to see research as a
violation of their experience, as irrelevant to their needs and as a failing to improve their material
circumstances and quality of life “(Oliver, 1992). This makes the emancipatory research to be considered
as a radical alternative to the classical positivist research finding itself committed to the social change and
the “empowerment”. Its strength as a research method has been such that some people have identified
emancipatory research as the only suitable one to be considered inclusive (Walmsley, 2001).
As Barnes (2001) described it, the emancipatory research deals with the systematic demythologisation of
the structures and processes originated by disability and the establishment of a constructive dialogue
between the researchers and disabled people with the aim of making the “empowerment “ of these people
easier. For this reason, researchers must learn to put their knowledge and abilities at the disposal of
people with disabilities.
social exclusion
Students from group
ethnical and cultural
exclusion
Students from group
disabling exclusion
Total
4women
4 men
4women
4 men
16
(8 women/8men)
4women
4women
16
4 men
4 men
(8 women/8men)
24
24
48
(12 women/12 men) (12 women/12 men) (24 women/24men)
The research consist of two stages: In the first stage the young people taking part in the
research provide us with their experiences through four biographical-narrative
techniques: self-introduction, biographical interview, picture technique and line of life
(biograma).
The self-introduction is a short description the person interviewed gives of him/herself.
It must be taken as an assumption, a personal option that tries to meet a consistent
vision these people have about themselves. In it, the different selfs are projected - the
wished self, the real one, the realised one, the expected one etc.-and some dimensions
will appear that will guide the understanding of the person and his/her actions. The
biographical interview is an strategy that allows us to reflect and remember episodes of
one’s life. It is where the person tells things about his/her biography (personal , scholar,
familiar, relationships) within the frame of an open exchange of information with the
interviewer. The people interviewed are encouraged to the reconstruction of their own
lives through a set of thematic issues (school experience, facilities and difficulties found
along it, current familiar life, future familiar life, etc) that constitute their lives. The
focusing interview follows the previous technique. In it, another conversation, once the
previous technique has been deeply reviewed, is held once again with the aim of
clarifying the issues which were not clear enough at the first stage (the appraisal of a
certain episode, time and space where the facts took place, the event or episode itself).
The analysis of a picture chosen by the interviewed him/herself allows to talk about one
or various issues pointed out by them as interesting in their lives (that’s why they
choose a certain picture but any other one). It also allows them to reflect on their wishes
and vital expectations. The biograma brings together a collection of chronological
events considered as specially significant for a proper understanding of the life of the
subject. It is a graphical structure that includes spaces and times which, from the current
perspective of the interviewed have kept configuring his/her life together with the
current appraisal of each of them.
In a second stage we expect the participants to became co-researchers of their own life.
For this to be carried out, they are asked to decide themselves the ways and the people
who may provide us more knowledge on their own life. Thus, they decide new
techniques (based on the word or image of persons, institutions and significant places
for them) that make part of their own “book of life”. Naturally, this second part is likely
to be very heterogeneous according to the methods and formats in which the
information is presented, but it is at the same time the most in keeping one with the
individual tastes of each person. At the same time at this stage, the subjects undertake a
main role in the research abandoning the passive role they played in traditional research.
All as a whole makes a wide heritage of information that is structured through thematic,
interpretative, and chronological coding. This coding allows us to carry out a double
analysis: individual analysis (Life History of each participant) and comparative analysis
among groups.
Thus, firstly, we obtain an individual report of each case in which the main barriers and
aids towards inclusion experimented by the students are stated. This individual report is
an authentic life history to which original information with regard to their own lives is
added and decided by the participants themselves.
Subsequently, we will do comparative analysis that affect the self-introductions,
biogramas (lines of life) , analysis of the redundancies in the scholar and social barriers,
as well as in the aids for inclusion.
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